Report by Julian Avis
We flew out to Cyprus on Thursday 1st November.
Norman picked Paul and me up at the airport. On our way back from the airport we went to a dive shop to pick up cylinders, weights and meet Ray (shop owner and our dive guide), before spending the night at Norman’s place.
In the morning we drove across the island to Larnaca, had a very nice English breakfast before popping into another dive shop to pick up stage cylinders and get signed up for the boat.
A short walk to the marina and we were off to dive the Zenobia.
We got kitted up on the half mile trip out to the wreck site and had two dive briefings one from Ray as dive guide and the other from me as course instructor.
All four of us jumped in together and down the line we went, you could see the wreck as soon as you put you head below the surface and it looked big – very big. We came off the line and swam over the starboard side of the wreck before going down to the stern and the props and rudder, from there around to the cargo doors before coming back around to the deck – a vertical wall of steel with lorries hanging from it like toys on a Christmas tree.
Through the trucks and vans to the accommodation block, along a passage way back out and into the bridge, a look around in there, then back out to the starboard side of the ship to start the gas changing and deploy the SMBs for the course work.
All went well on the test and we had a two-hour tea break on the boat before going back in to have a look at the bow of the ship with another round of gas changing at the end of the dive.
We had to do it all again the next day but with a water temp of 24C and 30 metres vis and a wreck as good as the Zenobia it’s a joy.
Back to Norman’s place before our fight back home on Monday. What a nice weekend.
